Build Adobe Analytics-Connected Dashboards in Redash

Redash lets you connect and query your data sources, build dashboards to visualize data and share them with your company. When paired with CData Connect Server, you get instant, cloud-to-cloud access to Adobe Analytics data for visualizations, dashboards, and more. This article shows how to create a virtual database for Adobe Analytics and build visualizations from Adobe Analytics data in Redash.

CData Connect Server provides a pure SQL Server interface for Adobe Analytics, allowing you to easily build reports from live Adobe Analytics data in Redash — without replicating the data to a natively supported database. As you build visualizations, Redash generates SQL queries to gather data. Using optimized data processing out of the box, CData Connect Server pushes all supported SQL operations (filters, JOINs, etc) directly to Adobe Analytics, leveraging server-side processing to quickly return the requested Adobe Analytics data.

Create a Virtual SQL Server Database for Adobe Analytics Data

CData Connect Server uses a straightforward, point-and-click interface to connect to data sources and generate APIs.

1. Login to Connect Server and click Connections.
2. Select "Adobe Analytics" from Available Data Sources.
3. Enter the necessary authentication properties to connect to Adobe Analytics.

   Adobe Analytics uses the OAuth authentication standard. To authenticate using OAuth, you will need to create an app to obtain the OAuthClientId, OAuthClientSecret, and CallbackURL connection properties. See the "Getting Started" section of the help documentation for a guide.

   Retrieving GlobalCompanyId

   GlobalCompanyId is a required connection property. If you do not know your Global Company ID, you can find it in the request URL for the users/me endpoint on the Swagger UI. After logging into the Swagger UI Url, expand the users endpoint and then click the GET users/me button. Click the Try it out and Execute buttons. Note your Global Company ID shown in the Request URL immediately preceding the users/me endpoint.

   Retrieving Report Suite Id

   Report Suite ID (RSID) is also a required connection property. In the Adobe Analytics UI, navigate to Admin -> Report Suites and you will get a list of your report suites along with their identifiers next to the name.

   After setting the GlobalCompanyId, RSID and OAuth connection properties, you are ready to connect to Adobe Analytics.

4. Click Save Changes
5. Click Privileges -> Add and add the new user (or an existing user) with the appropriate permissions.

With the virtual database created, you are ready to connect to Adobe Analytics data from Redash.

Visualize Adobe Analytics Data in Redash

The steps below outline creating a new data source in Redash based on the virtual Adobe Analytics database in Connect Server and building a simple visualization from the data.

Create a New Data Source

1. Log into Redash, click on your profile and click "Data Sources"
2. Click the " New Data Source" button
3. Select "Microsoft SQL Server" as the Data Source Type
4. On the configuration tab, set the following properties:
   • Name: Name the data source (e.g. Adobe Analytics (CData Connect))
   • Host: The full URL to your CData Connect instance (e.g. https://connect_server_url)
   • Port: The port of the CData Connect SQL Server endpoint (e.g. 1433)
   • User: A CData Connect user
   • Password: The password for the above user
   • Database name: The name of the virtual database for Adobe Analytics (e.g. AdobeAnalytics1)
   • Click the checkbox to Use SSQL
5. Click Create
6. Click the "Test Connection" button to ensure you have configured the connection properly

With the new Data Source created, we are ready to visualize our Adobe Analytics data.

Create a Adobe Analytics Data Visualization

1. Click Create -> New Query
2. Select the newly created Data Source (you can explore the data structure in the New Query wizard)
3. Write a SQL statement to retrieve the data, for example:
   SELECT Page, PageViews FROM AdsReport WHERE City = 'Chapel Hill'
4. Click the "Execute" button to load Adobe Analytics data into Redash via CData Connect
5. Use the Visualization Editor to create and analyze graphs from Adobe Analytics data
6. You can schedule the query to refresh and update the visualization periodically

SQL Access to Adobe Analytics Data from Cloud Applications

At this point, you have a direct, cloud-to-cloud connection to Adobe Analytics data from Redash. You can create new visualizations, build dashboards, and more. For more information on gaining SQL access to data from more than 100 SaaS, Big Data, and NoSQL sources from cloud applications like Redash, refer to our Connect Server page.